Kenya can’t block International Criminal Court probe

AMSTERDAM — The International Criminal Court on Tuesday dismissed the Kenyan government’s bid to stop a probe into post-election violence, saying Kenya had failed to show it was conducting its own investigation of six suspects.

Six high-profile Kenyans, including prominent politicians and businessmen, were named by the ICC as suspects in the violence that erupted after disputed elections in December 2007. About 1,300 people died and nearly half a million fled their homes.

Kenya’s government had objected to the ICC proceedings because it said the adoption of a new constitution and other reforms paved the way for it to carry out its own prosecutions.

But Daniel David Ntanda Nsereko, the appeals chamber judge, said the Kenyan government had failed to prove that it was in fact investigating the six suspects for the crimes against humanity of which they are suspected.

The ICC investigation has potentially enormous political and economic implications for Kenya in the run-up to the next elections, due in 2012.

Two of the suspects — William Ruto, a former education minister, and Uhuru Kenyatta, the current finance minister — want to run for president next year.

Polls indicate that a majority of Kenyans would prefer an ICC investigation into the post-election violence to one conducted by the Kenyan authorities.